Mod

Unfortunately this has had to be disabled due to the 100 person limit on the PlayFab side.

As of Saturday morning (UTC), the global chat setup known as PA Chat is now enabled for all users. If you don’t have the mod PA Chat installed you will now see the JOIN PA CHAT button in the bottom-right of your main menu screen. Clicking this takes you to the global chat room, making it much easier to find other PA players to play with.

Following a week of extensive testing and feedback we’ve prepared another patch for the Legion Expansion. Now that it’s available to all Planetary Annihilation: TITANS players we’re getting a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t out in the field.

This time around we’ve implemented some changes designed to help you migrate from the MLA to the Legion, moving units into build locations that best fit the role the MLA unit in that position would have held. We’ve also nerfed a couple of units that seemed abusable, though we’ll be seeing how those Starcannon changes fare. In addition we’ve worked to eliminate some unnecessary micro on the Salamander, while hopefully not allowing you to micro it when you want to.

Lastly, there are some general fixes to improve the general polish of the mod.

Check out the full changelog below.

General

Switched Deathmark and Havoc on the build bar so their positions are better aligned with MLA roles

Switched Salamander and Infiltrator on the build bar so their positions are better aligned with MLA roles

It’s time for another weekly update for Legion Expansion. As memorial weekend comes to a close we’re really close to seeing the Planetary Annihilation PTE pushed to the stable branch, allowing all players access to the Legion with no hoops to jump through.

As we’re getting close to this miraculous occasion we want to get your feedback on the beta. If you can take five minutes to complete this survey we’d greatly appreciate it.

It’s a light patch this time, but it contains some important balance changes. We’re focused on trying to improve unit diversity and get away from the Enforcer spam meta we’ve seen take hold. With the health drop we’re hopeful that Monstrosities will need to be added into the mix to act as a shield for the fragile Enforcer, as well as making T2 vehicles more relevant. While we also include a nerf to the Starcannon we’re considering additional measures to make anti-orbital defences more effective against it, so stay tuned.

General

Mixed MLA/Legion armies now use a custom icon on the player list

Balance

Starcannon nerf:

Pods can now be shot down by Bluehawks, Catapults, Stingrays and Panzers

Decimator buff:

Health increased from 1500 to 2500

Panzer nerf:

Missiles can now be shot down by GIL-Es

Fixes

Removed an invalid ammo type to prevent errors

Panzer no longer misses at close range

Legion tag no longer shown in UI in non-Legion games

INSTALLATION:

The Legion Expansion relies on the latest features of Planetary Annihilation TITANS which currently are only available via the PTE. Check out this eXodus eSports article which explains what a PTE is and how to get it.

The Legion Expansion is installed from the Community Mods section of Planetary Annihilation TITANS. Simply search for “Legion” and choose to install the Legion Expansion. All required elements will be installed. AI support is included within the mod, but for enhanced AI try installing the Queller AI as well.

HOW TO PLAY:

Work continues on the Planetary Annihilation: TITANS Legion Expansion with bugs being eliminated, new features being added and the balance continuing to be tweaked. The big change in this release is that players will no longer need to have the Legion Expansion installed to be able to play in a Legion Expansion game. While the recommendation is still that you install it ahead of time, the days of unaware players joining and then crashing are over.

Unfortunately the Legion Expansion is not playable in multiplayer at the moment. This is due to its reliance on features introduced in the PTE, and the absence of any PTE servers at this time. Once build 94533 or later is released to stable you will be able to play Legion online again. Until then AI skirmish remains available for use with the local server option in settings enabled.

General

Improved MLA selection graphics in lobby

In-game menu is now red when Legion UI is enabled

Removed blue shadows from UI elements when Legion UI is enabled

Novas prioritise air

Optimised Nova effects for performance

Standardised colouring of commanders on game launch splash

Standardised colouring of Commanders in lobby

Infiltrator’s probe scan effect plays more than once after deployment to more clearly show its function

Wraith renamed to Spectre

Excalibur renamed to Paladin

Added idle effects to the Havoc

Improved PA startup time when Legion is disabled through use of new companion mod feature

The Legion Expansion adds an entirely new faction to Planetary Annihilation. That’s over a hundred new units, offering a playstyle that’s completely different from the original faction. Currently in public beta, a new version has been released.

At the moment it is not possible to use the faction in multiplayer as it’s only accessible via the PTE, and the PTE servers have been taken offline for the time being. Thankfully the PTE is expected to move to stable this week at which point you’ll be able to play it against other humans once more. Until then the AI still works, either using the built-in AI or Queller AI.

General

Patriots automatically place themselves at the back of formations

MLA Commanders now outlined in blue in the lobby to match Legion

Earthshaker causes smaller forest fires

Corsair prioritises structures (excluding walls) over mobile units

Rampart uses team colour for its switching off effect

Balance

Gustav nerfed:

range decreased to 500 from 550

Earthshaker nerfed:

damage reduced from 2000 to 1500

Comet nerfed:

build cost increased from 2400 metal to 2500

health decreased from 4000 to 2500

bomber tag added to ensure ground AA shoots it before fighters

Nova overhaul:

build cost increased from 90 metal to 120

health decreased from 180 to 120

causes constant damage to all enemy air units within close proximity for 20 seconds

One of the things fans have been crying out for ever since Planetary Annihilation was released was another faction. A staple of RTS games since the dawn of time, multiple factions didn’t make it into the game due to budgetary constraints. We had to settle for just one.

Until now.

The Legion Expansion is a community mod which introduces an entirely new faction into the game. Featuring as many units as the original Machine Liberation Army (MLA), it provides an entirely new way to play. The Legion are far more focused on slower, more powerful units. There’s nothing subtle about them, they focus on holding their ground until they can achieve victory through a single mighty strike.

Rise of the Legion is Planetary Annihilation: TITAN’s first 3rd party faction modification. It adds the Imperial Legion, a race with a unique set of units and buildings to enhance the experience of Planetary Annihilation. Built especially for those who were missing the multiple race dynamic of other RTS, this opens up Planetary Annihilation to even more fun.

Some of the most prolific and talented modders of the Planetary Annihilation community have come together to build this mod for everyone to enjoy. This mod leaves the already existing vanilla faction totally untouched, those comfortable with sticking to what they know can do just that, but those wishing to play The Legion will find a host of new strategies and strengths available to them, and new weaknesses to contend with.

Planetary Annihilation is best enjoyed in cooperative teamplay, where the Legion mod as well will excel with mixed armies or Legion vs vanilla combinations. The Legion has its own set of fabrication units and factories producing a unique combat force that both compliments and opposes the units everyone knows. Discover the synergy between The Legion and vanilla as you and your friends fight alongside and against a force you have never seen before.

The Legion comes with its own set of commanders (Rockteeth and Overwatch) that grant the controlling player access to the Legion unit set. Simply select either commander in the lobby and deploy!

The team is working hard to release the first playable beta to the public. In the meantime enjoy the screenshots below and stay tuned for future updates.

After an extensive PTE period the asteroids update has arrived and has brought a raft of bugfixes with it too. There are AI improvements, UI scaling, mult-planet Galactic War makes a return, the AMD brightness bug has been beaten, and much more.

But let’s talk about the asteroids. Some systems (and you can add them to your systems) will have an outer ring of asteroids. You set minimum and maximum numbers and control their spawn times, because more will appear over time. And this all hooks into a change in planet smashing. Gone are craters and guesstimating your impact zone, and we return to the original method of world enders where a smash destroys everything, even the planet now. Keep your eyes on the stars because if one of these rocks appears and you’re not contesting it then you’re as good as dead.

Asteroids

The asteroid belt spawns in small asteroids at a predetermined timing that can be set by the system designer

An alert plays when an asteroid appears in the system

Asteroids have been added to the Roc, Styx, and Medea systems. The Roc system has also been added to the list of Ranked systems

Balance

AA Missile splash damage

Commander decreased from 25 to 10

AA Vehicle (Spinner) decreased from 20 to 10

Air Defense (Galata) decreased from 20 to 10

Missile Ship (Stingray) decreased from 25 to 10

Planets now explode when they collide with one another

This means that the player no longer targets a spot on the target planet

This also means that all commanders on the planet are the first to die and die at the same time

Planets in motion go directly to the target after first going around the sun once

AI

Fix for the AI using the wrong value when making a planet wide patrol order on a gas giant

Fix for crash due to bad data in AI unit map

Fix for AI trying to create an artillery platoon when a Unit Cannon is built

Fix for AI failing to build if the factory it wants to start with cannot be built due to the spec not being available

AI should waste resources less often

Added support for AIs to have multiple personality tags

Fixed a bug where the AI would not build an advanced vehicle fabber on planets with an enemy on it

Fixed bug where a fabber would not be built right away on a planet where the AI had an orbital fabber

Fix for AI not setting up initial army presences correctly

Improved AI econ handling

Fix for AI fabbers constantly starting and stopping assisting

Fix for bug in planetmanager that could cause the AI to not create a new base for a spawned in unit when it should

Minor AI build condition update

Fix for AI crash during sim shutdown

Minor AI build item change

AI will try to stick to the same enemy as a target unless a significant reason exists to change

Minor AI platoon behavior modifications

Fix for AI orbital radar platoons

Added stuck detection to the disband behavior of AI platoons in an attempt to keep them from getting lost by the AI

AI should do a better job of scouting other planets

Fix for AI crash that can occur when an AI is defeated

Fix for AI micro and keep at range distances

Further improved AI attack from range behavior

AI can now use asteroids

AI can now handle combat on smaller planets better

AI will launch asteroids at other asteroids, under certain conditions

AI unit cap no longer affects Nukes and Anti-Nukes

Fix for an issue where the AI would not fire nukes in mutli-planet games

Fix for an issue where the AI would send an orbital radar to another planet and it sits there doing nothing

More fixes to the AI platoon distance calculation

Fix for the bug where the AI sometimes would build Nukes/Anti-Nukes and then not have them ever build anything

Minor AI econ balance change

Fix for AI personality_tags having no effect

AI should expand to other planets a bit faster

AI will build more ion cannons

Fix for crash in AI if a transport died immediately after unloading a unit

AI can build Ion Cannons with advanced fabbers

Improved the AI’s orbital game a bit

AI perf improvements

AI will let its metal storage fill up a bit more before using the wasting metal build items

Armory

Restore the display of Kickstarter backer names in the Armory

Fix preferred commander tile state in Armory

Audio

+Sing audio! Give it a try and see what it does

Adding commander footstep sounds

ChronoResume

Disabled the “play from here” button when it would end up before commanders have landed

Galactic War

Fix for GW battles with multiple commanders after save/load/resume

Fix for GW systems not spawning the correct type of systems on harder difficulties

Fix the Revenants minions so they work like everyone else

Graphics

New planet crash effect!

Fix for AMD/ATI brightness bug

Trades brightness for banding

Use –gl-force-mrt-srgb-capable on the command line to turn this behavior back off

It is still uncertain whether this is a driver bug or a pipeline configuration bug. It appears that there is some state that leads to improper blending occurring while filling the diffuse colors in the g-buffer.

Fix for beam particles sometimes not rendering

Fix for particle emitters with the same shader and texture but different facings sometimes not respecting the facing setting

Matchmaking

Fix for an issue where ranked matchmaking was not matching people properly

Fix for an issue where players could not pick their commanders in ranked matches

Changed the schema of holodeck raycast call results to include the currently focused planet

Added Holodeck.focusedPlanet() function call, which returns the currently focused planet

Fix for the misspelling of “maneuver” that was prevalent in the codebase

In WorldView.sendOrder, removed the requirement on location for non-location commands

Added valid stance value documentation for the WorldView.sendOrder

Save/Load

Fix for loading a save where an entity was created and retired on the same tick

Saving the game is no longer enabled during landing & game over states

Fix an issue where the last GW save would not appear in the continue last game spot when you complete a battle and return to main menu

Fix a server crash when rewinding the game and then saving

System Editor

Fix the sliders in the system editor

Fix a bug where the metal planet’s radius could be set lower than the minimum

Fix an issue where a twin CSG could get left behind in the system editor and the user could not delete it

Pathing

Improved the exiting of teleporters

Performance

Fix for area patrol lag

Speed up of distributing points on a planet for planet wide patrols for Air/Orbital units

Minor physics perf improvement

UI

Improved feedback while placing buildings

Build previews now show the placement bounds as a square light

The preview will change yellow if placing the building will block a metal spot

The preview will turn red if building is placed in a spot it cannot be built on

Hovering over wreckage will no longer allow the use command to be the default right-click command

Issuing a terminating order to a unit (which is most orders) will remove all non-terminating orders (Patrol and Assist) from the unit’s order queue

From the GW, you can now quit to the main menu or the GW map. You can no longer quit to desktop from the live game menu

Various GW galaxy visual tweaks

Adjust the postion of outlining stars to keep them inside the galaxy graphic

Changed the starting zoom level to center on the galaxy and fit it too the view, instead of zooming in on the local cluster around the player. This ensures that you can see the galaxy when you first start, and ensures that the commander is in view.

We now have a button that will show the typed password in the lobby. (i.e. it’ll show “hunter2” rather than “*******”.)

Show an informational dialog for machines that do not meet the required specs to play on a local server

Paused game ui shows a small display for user invoked pause, full width pause when invoked by game (resume after save, etc.)

Option exists in settings as “GUI Size”

Players have a slider that allows them to adjust the size of the UI to their liking

Its been over a week since PTE 84260 came out, but it appears Uber have been busy. AMD owners will be pleased to see that a possible fix for the AMD brightness bug has been implemented. For those who favour Galactic War, the multi-planet systems are back for those of you who have upped the difficulty. The AI has been further tuned and improved its orbital game, as well as a bug fix that will allow the vanilla AI and Queller to play alongside one another. And let’s not forget even more adjustments to the APIs for modders.

So, a lot of little things in this PTE, but they all add up to something big, and there’s a lot of fixes for niggly issues that have been outstanding. Make sure to provide your feedback in the official thread.

If you partaking in Mystery Mayhem then be aware this PTE will likely hit stable ahead of that tournament so you might want to give it a try.

Not sure what a PTE is or how to play it? Check out our guide to PTE. It’s where you’ll find all the latest features, and right now it’s the only place to play with asteroids.

AI

AI unit cap no longer affects Nukes and Anti-Nukes

Fix for an issue where the AI would not fire nukes in mutli-planet games

Fix for an issue where the AI would send an orbital radar to another planet and it sits there doing nothing

More fixes to the AI platoon distance calculation

Fix for the bug where the AI sometimes would build Nukes/Anti-Nukes and then not have them ever build anything

Minor AI econ balance change

Fix for AI personality_tags having no effect

AI should expand to other planets a bit faster

AI will build more ion cannons

Fix for crash in AI if a transport died immediately after unloading a unit

AI can build Ion Cannons with advanced fabbers

Improved the AI’s orbital game a bit

AI perf improvements

AI will let its metal storage fill up a bit more before using the wasting metal build items

Armory

Restore the display of Kickstarter backer names in the Armory

Fix preferred commander tile state in Armory

ChronoResume

Disabled the “play from here” button when it would end up before commanders have landed

Galactic War

Fix for GW battles with multiple commanders after save/load/resume

Fix for GW systems not spawning the correct type of systems on harder difficulties

Fix the Revenants minions so they work like everyone else

Graphics

Fix for AMD/ATI brightness bug

Trades brightness for banding

Use –gl-force-mrt-srgb-capable on the command line to turn this behavior back off

It is still uncertain whether this is a driver bug or a pipeline configuration bug. It appears that there is some state that leads to improper blending occurring while filling the diffuse colors in the g-buffer.

Fix for beam particles sometimes not rendering

Fix for particle emitters with the same shader and texture but different facings sometimes not respecting the facing setting

Matchmaking

Fix for an issue where ranked matchmaking was not matching people properly

Fix for an issue where players could not pick their commanders in ranked matches